Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jul 05, 2006
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jul 05, 2006 |
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Cars Corporate - Performance
K. Giriprakash
Bangalore , July 4 Maruti 800, which not long ago was the bread and butter car of Maruti Udyog before Alto took over the role, is making a comeback. During the last two months, Maruti 800's sales have again started showing growth after a prolonged period of falling sales. The turnaround appears to be driven by customers returning to a low-priced segment, probably driven by issues such as high fuel prices and Maruti's ability to prise open newer segments. In May, the Maruti 800 registered a 10 per cent growth over the corresponding period last year and in June, the increase was as high as 22 per cent. An official with Maruti Udyog said that a combination of several factors is driving sales. "We have started focusing on particular segments which we didn't do earlier. Also, excise duty reductions and ever-increasing fuel prices are the other factors which are helping the sales to grow," he said. What is significant is that there isn't huge price difference between Maruti 800 and the next higher priced car, which is Alto. While the highest-priced Maruti 800 costs around Rs 2,52,000 on road (Bangalore price), the lowest priced Alto, 800 cc again, from the same Maruti stable costs Rs 2,74,000. The fuel efficiency difference between the two is a mere one km per litre with Maruti 800 giving between 18 km and 20 km per litre and the Alto between 17 km and 19 km. This small difference had in fact led the customers to increasingly abandon Maruti 800 for Alto. Mr Neeraj Garg, Country Head and Director of Marketing, Nissan, with whom Suzuki has tied up to produce cars in India, told Business Line that there are important lessons to be learnt from Maruti 800's comeback, "First tap the urban segments and for bigger volumes drive down to the rural areas".
Related Stories: More Stories on : Cars | Performance | Maruti Udyog Ltd
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